Picture books about adoption; hit me with your ideas

[Jannt86]

As the header says really; LO is 2 soon and I think really starting to take in her story books etc so now is I think the time to start gently drip feeding her her adoption story. I will obviously use her lofe story book but also would like a couple of nice story books for her too. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Also, like most of our little treasures her life story includes some things that no child should ever reslly have to talk about but alas I know that I have to. I'm especially worried about giving her info that she will then share too openly with classmates etc and I'm aware that once I tell her I can't untell her. I don't ever want her to be ashamed of her background but at the same time it's just too much to explain to a young child that some things are private and that they need to be careful if you see what I mean? How did people deal with this side of things? Thanks xx

Todd Parr books are very good,
She is still very young, you don't need to burden her with detail until she is much older.
Life story work is long term thing. My son was much older at adoption so has much more memory of his own story. But he didnt get most of the detail until he was in his early teens so he understood that it was private stuff.
At 15 there is still information that he doesnt have, I am waiting until after his GCSEs.

My birth daughter was 4 when we were going through the process. We bought the doc mcstuffins book, the one where they adopt. It’s so matter of fact it helped her understand. The tv series (series 3) helped us talk about it from her perspective.

In terms of stories we don’t have many which are specific to adoption. We have quite a few about families. My kids just view our family like everyone else’s

In terms of info, everything is matter of fact. My son knows almost nothing about the reasons why he was taken into care, just that his mum couldn’t care for him. At the moment, that’s enough. Judge it on your daughter. She will let you know when she is ready

Definitely drip feed. I used to tell DD2 her story in the bath.

I made her a cut down LSB with just the bare details as her LSB was more aimed at an upper primary child.

We liked 'A Mother for Chocco' as a story book.
The Nutmeg books were a bit 'worthy'.

We loved The Teazles Baby Bunny and it was a perfect way to introduce the idea of adoption without it being too direct. We have also drip fed her story over the years so never any shock moments for her. 8 years down the line and she’s knows pretty much everything - telling her slowly and with care has meant she’s taken it in her stride.

We love a Mother for Chocco and have been reading it since DS was a baby.

We've had I Wished for You (Marianne Richmond) on the shelf for a while and just recently started reading it. I think it's a really sweet book, but I'd challenge any adopter to read it aloud and still have dry eyes by the end. There are a couple of references to adoption being God's decision, an idea that I don't really subscribe to, so I just change those bits.

I recently had a look through Todd Parr's We Belong Together. I didn't warm to it, but the online reviews are really good so maybe it's just me.

We have always had tons of adoption books and now aged 12 and 13 my children still love reading about children being adopted or in care.

Mine were a bit older when they were placed with us (5 and 6) and quite advanced in their understanding, we still had some picture books though, like

• The Lamb-a-roo
• Flora's family
• A first look at: Adoption
• A mother for Choco
• The Great Big Book for Families
• Rosie's family
• Another book that is not adoption specific but which deals with loss is Knuffle Bunny. There was something in the book that deeply resounded with my children.

I have always bought adoption books irrespective of whether they resembled our situation or not. My kids are now experts in all sorts of scenarios. :-)

We have been using a book called Families Families Families. It describes different family types. We drip feed things like "oh that's like you you are adopted" or "your daddies are married" or "you have siblings but they live xxx" etc. Our little one is just over 2 so I guess we use it to drop in words that will become important in the future.

I have just purchased for my 3 year old, a mother for chocco, and I’ve loved you since forever they are perfect to start with she loves them.